8 Social Media tools you need to know in 2016

Social media has changed the way we communicate and has created an opportunity for businesses to connect directly with their audience and customers, helping to increase engagement as well as build and maintain relationships.

One of the reasons why small business owners find social media challenging is the thought of having to navigate through the fast-paced world of social media and not have the time to commit. With these useful tools you can save time and also increase your social media presence.

Hootsuite is a social media management tool that allows you to send one post across all your social media platforms. It’s free to use when managing less than 3 accounts, anymore then there is a small fee.

Bitly is a free, simple to use link management platform that allows you to shorten links when you are posting directly onto your social media accounts i.e Twitter. This is a great tool if you are not using a social management tool like Hootsuite.

With the SEMrush Social Media tool you can get as much information on your competitors’ social media profiles as you can for yours. Conduct thorough research on your competitors’ social media campaigns and compare them to yours in real time.

IFTTT is a powerful tool that allows users to connect up to 166 different channels together. It is a service that connects two services together seamlessly, using recipes (or formulas) that include a trigger and an action. So, when a specified trigger takes place in one channel, an action takes place in the other. I.e. when you publish a new blog post on your website, it is automatically posted onto your social media platforms or if you upload a video to YouTube you can set it to automatically post onto Twitter or your Facebook album.

Discover.ly s a free Chrome extension that allows you to see the social sites of your email connections and even cross-reference other social sites as you browse. So if you’re on LinkedIn looking at someone’s profile, you can see your mutual connections on Facebook and Twitter

Do you want to know which Hastags are trending right now or which hashtags are the most popular. Hashtagify.me is the most advanced Twitter Hashtags search engine. It allows you to find the best hashtags to reach your audience – and it is free!

Tailwind is beta-testing the ability to easily pin and schedule Instagram photos onto Pinterest boards. The tool allows you to organize your Instagram photos based on likes, comments or most recent photos. This way you can then pin your most popular Instagram photos and give them new life on Pinterest.

With Video’s becoming increasingly popular not just for SEO but also within Social Media with this tool you can create personalised videos. Overvideo is a free iPhone app you can use to create visual calls to action when you post video to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

For help with setting up your social media platforms or if you are looking for help with managing your social media accounts please contact us.